The Networked Storyteller and Her Digital Tale: Film Festivals and Ann Hui’s 'My Way'

In cooperation with China’s Youku online channel, the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society commissioned Ann Hui to make a short film, My Way, to be part of an omnibus production, Beautiful 2012. In order to be considered for this commission, Hui needed to be acknowledged at international film festivals and be a recognized auteur known in the Asian region and beyond. Without Hui’s festival credentials and the reputation of the other directors in the curated production, the collected shorts would have little appeal to other programmers and distributors. Although she has famously resisted the label of “film auteur” in the past, Ann Hui undoubtedly stands as the most celebrated female director based in Hong Kong active before and after the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) in 1997.Given the length of her career as well as the impressive critical and scholarly attention her work has garnered, Hui serves as an exemplary case study of how film festivals play a vital role in the career of a Hong Kong female fiction film director. In the case of My Way, the festival circuit permits a specific type of production and digital distribution that enables Hui to craft a network narrative, which places the transition of its protagonist from male to female within a broader community connected through a shared gender identity. By analyzing Ann Hui’s presence at the festivals in Venice and Hong Kong, as well as the link between her festival exposure and her Internet success, My Way offers insight into the circuitous paths women filmmakers follow in order to tell their stories on transnational screens.

Interactive documentary and the reinvention of digital journalism, 2015–2020

Interactive documentary (i-docs), an innovative hybrid form at the intersection of film, journalism, and digital games, has matured beyond its first wave of experimentation, gaining distinction among the most highly evolved immersive media of the twenty-first century. The latest generation of i-docs is currently winning accolades at both major film festivals and game design summits. This study charts the evolutionary trajectory of North America’s most recent and influential wave of i-docs in works mostly appearing since 2015. It culturally situates i-docs as immersive media that extend experimentation with narrative journalism into the realm of fine art and social activism. Building on the foundation of activist, highly empathic news experiences established in the early 2010s, the most recent advances in i-docs range from live action VR to animated digital games. Such works include the Canadian National Film Board’s 2018 AR (augmented reality) experience East of the Rockies, Occupied’s 2019 Cannes entry The Holy City VR, Roger Ross Williams’ 2019 Tribeca debut Traveling While Black, and iNK Stories Verité VR Series’ 2017 Blindfold and Hero, winner of the prestigious Storyscapes Award at Tribeca in 2018. The vanguard of i-docs has expanded collaboration between film, news, and digital game industries to provide new forms of citizen engagement through advocacy journalism aimed at social and political change. Through the use of John Pavlik’s (2019) critical framework for understanding immersive journalism, this article examines the texts, producers, and industrial contexts of the most recent and influential North American i-docs, as one branch of the form defined by Gaudenzi, Aston, and Rose. Principles of transparency, social responsibility, and a commitment to veracity in i-docs epitomize the esthetic and political potential of digital journalism as an empathic alternative to traditional news coverage.

Cultural Diplomacy on International Film Festivals, during the unprecedented year of 2020.

Against the countless cancellations of cultural events around the globe, the dynamics of the film festival circuit and its representations took on new courses and different perspectives. About these symbolic power relations, the article dives into a brief data record, on the performance and possible adaptations upon the organization of film festivals, during the year 2020, and throughout the global pandemic, that exponentiated the digitization of some structuring processes on international cinematographic circulation. Ultimately, it adds notions of cultural diplomacy to international film festivals. In order to transpose theoretical concepts to contemporary practice and verify, in this way, the influences and consequences of virtualization to the subjectivities and significance of diplomacy and otherness upon interconnected identities in the current global community.

The Survivor's Suite: The Life of the International Festival of Ethnological Film in Belgrade through Interesting Times

This paper is an attempt, based on many years of following the International Festival of Ethnological Film, organized by the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade, to provide insight into the way in which it has so far fulfilled its purpose, while at the same time experiencing tumultuous, occasionally even tragic events and processes. The main question concerns the way in which “interesting times” have left their mark on and shaped the world of human experience of people who have lived through them, thus also film production and festival practice. The phrase “interesting times” is used in the sense in which it was used by the historian Eric Hobsbawm, who used it as a label for “the most extraordinary and terrible century in human history”. Two elements are of prime importance in the paper – the assumption that “interesting times” can exist simultaneously with, and can cause or heighten emotional and creative tension, and also the fact that the limited possibilities that the resulting states of mind and initiatives can be fulfilled through the usual channels, such as political ones, can lead to attempts to satisfy them through art or cultural forms. Film production and festival activities can, under certain circumstances, offer alternative channels for expressing moods and content that arise or are enhanced during “interesting times”. On the one hand, the framework for analysis will provide reflections on the nature and the possible social roles of film festivals, including festivals of documentary and ethnographic films. Essentially, it will be necessary to consider the questions of the types of experiences provided by the Festival to its participants and attendees, the cinematic experiences it offers, and the specific aims and ideologies advocated as part of it. On the other hand, relying on valuable testimony in the form of the Festival Catalogue, words and images which testify to the achievements of the Festival will be identified. At the very beginning, in the turbulent times when political orders were overthrown, along with legal and ethical frameworks, it seemed that the Festival had managed to be conceptually ahead of its time. It was a dream come true and a model for many, a place where “miracles” happened. After a number of years, its long history temporarily weakened the Festival's creative potential. The times became somewhat less interesting, slightly dull even, and the Festival followed suit. And yet through all the changes, the Festival has not ceased to be a place where people meet and learn; a place where images inspire thoughts, and thoughts seek visual means of expression; a place where, by meeting Others, we learn something about ourselves as well, but also a place where by seeking to find a way to represent ourselves, we enrich Others.

The role of art tourism in the process of forming tourist attractiveness of the territory

The purpose of the article is to determine the role of modern art tourism, its components, and varieties in the process of the formation of tourist attractiveness of a certain territory. The methodology of the research is based on the use of general scientific methods (systemic, structural and functional, genetic, typologization, etc.) with the involvement of research guidelines of socio-cultural analysis of phenomena and processes. The scientific novelty of the results obtained is to find out the role of art tourism in the process of forming a tourist attractiveness of the territory, which consists in the formation of a positive image of the latter due to the use of new methods and mechanisms for promotion. Conclusions. The article presents an article characteristic of art tourism, which provides intellectual rest, that is, a combination of pleasant with useful, namely purposeful visits to various art measures and events: forums of contemporary art, large artistic and photo exhibitions, theatrical prime minister, film festivals, etc. Art tourism creates positive characteristics of a particular territory, forms a certain image of a consumer about cultural and historical heritage, contemporary art, everyday style of life, etc. The features of modern street art, which is one of the directions attracting tourists from all over the world. Street art is able to tell an entire history of culture and life without a single word. More and more communities include Street Art and Graffiti in the concept of designing modern quarters and areas of their cities. Important attention is paid to this direction of creative tourism activity as an art hotel, which distinguished from the overall mass with its originality, artistic design, and creative approach to service.

Representing Ourselves into Existence

This chapter explores the energetic and innovative trans cinema movement that emerged in the 1990s by looking at case studies of the first transgender film festivals—Counting Past 2 in Toronto, the International Transgender Film and Video Festival in London, and Tranny Fest in San Francisco. Each festival took a different approach to trans film programming, community building, and arts funding. Together, the three festivals helped define a specifically transgender identity and community that overlapped with but were not the same as “queer.” They also influenced the programming of lesbian and gay festivals, carving out more room for trans-made work. These case studies demonstrate how film festivals can contribute to social and aesthetic movements, how festival organizers have overcome and become mired in the challenges they face, and the many ways in which trans has long put pressure on “lesbian and gay” and “queer” in the face of its erasure.

A HISTORY OF THE MOSCOW INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY “MEDIATING CAMERA”

The Ninth International FestivalBiennale “Mediating Camera” was held in Moscow in May 2021. This is the first Russian festival organized on the principles of visual anthropology and still adhering to that vision. The present article reports on the festival, the history of its establishment and development, and the changes it endured in the first twenty years since the turn of the millennium. The introduction briefly discusses visual anthropology and its situation in the USSR on the eve of Perestroika. The next section describes the first Russian documentary film festivals with similar angles. Further in the article, the authors discuss the approaches and principles adopted by the festival’s creators, a volunteer group of Moscow State University’s Center for Visual Anthropology. The main focus of attention is the initial period of the festival’s formation, when the organizers’ approaches to organizing the festival first took shape.

Films, Subtitles and Subversions

Focusing on subtitling for film festivals, more specifically on an Italian festival on human rights, this paper centres upon the notion of subversion as it can be applied to the practice of subtitling in this very special field. Subversive practices can, in fact, be found at various levels in the overall activity which the international distribution of films through festivals entails. From the very production of films and videos which tend to upturn mainstream cinematic conventions to the translation and dissemination of texts denouncing the violation of rights, the subversive action carried out by film festivals is always visible, strong and steady.Laying emphasis on the often unacknowledged role of the subtitlers involved in these subversive actions, the paper attempts to highlight the unique and often very complex role they are required to play, as well as the linguistic, sociocultural and emotional constraints they have to face.